Understanding evolutionary algorithms
In this section, we will drill down from our heredity down to our genes to understand the process that we will then represent while building our Python program.
Successive generations of humans activate some genes and not others, producing the wonderful diversity of humanity. A human lifetime is an episode in a long line of thousands of generations of humans. We all have two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents, which amounts to 23 ascendants. Suppose that we extend this line of reasoning to four generations per century and then over about 12,000 years when the last glacial period ended and the planet started warming up. We obtain:
- 4 * 1 century * 10 centuries = 1,000 years and 40 generations
- 40 generations * 12= 480
- Adding up to 2480 mathematical ascendants to anybody living today on the planet!
Even if we limit ourselves to 1,000 years, 240, that adds up to 1,099,511,627,776 ascendants...
